More on my fiction writing

April 14, 2011

Phoenix 101: 'The Valley'

Growing up in the Phoenix of the 1960s, "the Valley" was a benign term. It either meant the Valley of the Sun, the touristy moniker of the booster class, or the Salt River Valley, where Phoenix was geographically centered. The city was large and powerful, both economically and politically. The suburbs were small and inconsequential, most just still farm towns or railroad sidings.

Indeed, old Phoenix, central and south Scottsdale, Tempe and old Mesa sit in a real valley. The ancient Salt River Valley dips between the South Mountains (or, on old maps, the Salt River Mountains) and the Phoenix mountains, such as Shaw Butte, North Mountain, Piestewa Peak and Camelback. One could once see this on spectacular display coming north on Interstate 10 as it crossed Baseline Road, or from Baseline and the Japanese Gardens. For much of the early decades of settlement, this posed major flood-control problems. Rains cascaded off the mountains in search of home in the meandering, fickle Salt River. Nineteenth Avenue would become a river flowing down to the capitol before construction of Cave Creek Dam. At flood stage, Indian Bend Wash cut Scottsdale in half well into the 1980s. That same river, carrying rich deposits of soil from upsteam, created one of the world's great alluvial valleys here, custom made for farming that sustained two civilizations. So whether for tourists or as a geographical reality, "the Valley" was a widely used shorthand, harmless and endearing, often the sign of a native. It was part of the name of the most powerful bank. But there was no doubting this was Phoenix, or, as some called it, Greater Phoenix.

When I returned, the old connotations had changed. "The Valley" was widely used as the proper name of metropolitan Phoenix. This was abetted by the media, including the most influential, The Arizona Republic (the old Phoenix Gazette having been closed; too bad, imagine if it were an online newspaper with an entirely different tone and coverage focus than the big ship). This same media often didn't know where downtown Phoenix was — so many times I heard a radio or television report of some news "downtown," at, say, 24th Street and Camelback Road. I suppose it was a combination of ignorance and an effort at new-style marketing. Hence, we don't have the Phoenix Cardinals or Phoenix Diamondbacks, as most cities do, but "Arizona," which sounds like a college team. And it was an attempt to pander to suburbs that had grown to elephantine population sizes.

As a result, the 13th largest metropolitan area in the nation's identity became "The Valley." I grew to despise this for several reasons. First, it was terrible marketing in a world where economic competitiveness and social advancement are defined by cities. Most of the former Chicagoans in Phoenix aren't from the city, but ask them their origins and they say, "I'm from Chicago." The same is true of any American city mostly defined by suburbs, from Atlanta and Cincinnati to Los Angeles, Dallas and Denver. This sin is made worse by the mindless resistance to using the most beautiful and evocative city name in America: Phoenix.

Second, it encourages the disconnection and ignorance of the huge influx of newcomers in the 1980s and 1990s. They live in the archetype "geography of nowhere." It's actually not. Every square mile platted for farming in the Phoenix area has a rich and distinct history, and Phoenix, where they actually live, has a deeper and more complex history than the little Midwestern suburb or town they came from. But they don't know it. They aren't encouraged to know it. They live in "The Valley," whatever that is. It's also a sign of the inward-looking isolation that holds back metro Phoenix, keeps it from recognizing that it is competing as a big city for talent and capital whether it wants to or not. Hearing some of the people say "here in the Valley," they might as well be talking about some holler in Appalachia.

Third, it underscores the dysfunction of the "boombergs," with their huge populations, grasping for sales tax-dollars and the economic assets of the central city, and their undeserved sense of importance. None has the ability or aspirations to be a real city, but all hold petty grievances against the city of Phoenix — even as they depend on the professional skills of Phoenix City Hall, the Phoenix transit system, etc. The jealousies can be absurd: Thus, the abortive effort to lobby for state money to the arts had to be initially called the Maricopa Partnership for Arts and Culture. Mesa, that beacon of big-city accomplishments, apparently vetoed the use of the name "Phoenix." I lampooned this in my Republic column by praising the little Pinal County town for having such foresight and saying it would be nice if Phoenix could do the same. Only after many such jokes and misunderstandings of the name was it changed to Metro Phoenix Partnership for Arts and Culture. The same is true of "Valley Metro," mostly operating in and supported by the city of Phoenix. Imagine the youth market for PhART apparel (Phoenix Area Rapid Transit) — the proceeds from caps, sweatshirts, T-Shirts, hoodies, bumper stickers and coffee mugs alone could fund the whole system. But the suburbs must be appeased. So now the Cardinals and the corrupt Fiesta Bowl play, so says the national press, "in Glendale, Ariz." (but in the University of Phoenix Stadium, ha!). The Balkanization only grows: The "East Valley" is suspicious of the "West Valley," while 101 developers want a "North Valley," all fighting over a shrinking pie. It's all a circular firing squad that holds back the metro area as a whole.

In reality, much of the metro Phoenix sprawl is now outside the Salt River Valley — Buckeye, Peoria, Glendale, Surprise, Chandler, et al are on desert basins, reclaimed for agriculture and turned into schlock suburban subdivisions. Cave Creek, Carefree and Fountain Hills are in the desert highlands. Maricopa-the-Next-Scottsdale isn't even in the same county and is on the other side of the South Mountains. So much for "The Valley."

There's only one Bay Area (sorry Tampa). There are many valleys. The Valley is centered around San Jose, i.e. Silicon Valley (aka the Santa Clara Valley), heart of the world's computer and software industries. Second up is the San Fernando Valley, that of Valley Girls, the porn industry, a onetime agricultural idyll and now just part of LA. Then comes the national agricultural center that is the San Joaquin Valley. Otherwise, what valley are you talking about? Red River Valley (of the north or of the south)? Shenandoah Valley? Hudson Valley? Sun Valley? The San Gabriel Valley? This is hardly a way to distinguish oneself in the world, and "Valley of the Sun" might draw golfers and retirees, but those are hardly the building blocks needed by a major city. Investors from Shanghai, Amsterdam and New York will not be interested in "The Valley." No wonder literature from the East Valley Partnership subtly says it's the East Valley Partnership of Metropolitan Phoenix.

I am not just a creature of two blocks on Cypress and Holly streets in Willo, Midtown Phoenix. I attended high school in Scottsdale, college in Tempe. As an EMT and paramedic, I worked in Scottsdale, Mesa, Tempe, Chandler and Apache Junction (as well as all over Phoenix). In those years, I lived amid the remains of the old groves at 36th Street and Campbell. My great grandparents farmed near Alma School and Southern in Mesa. Grandmother sold real estate in Sunnyslope, among other places. My great aunt's acreage was just north of 7th Avenue and Glendale. My uncle bought a "new house with an all-electric kitchen" from John F. Long in Maryvale, and at various times lived all over the area. I even graduated from kindergarten in Coolidge, Pinal County. Out of all this, I'm a Phoenician and still proud of it. Identity and self-identity matter. They say much about a place's sense of self. Or lack thereof. So "Valley" was gone from my language by 2001 and has remained so. That's why this blog focuses on Phoenix.

I like to refer to the Phoenix Metropolitan Area as "The Conurbation," which is a British term that describes an urban area formed from many cities which have simply grown into each other. I like the word because it is an apt description of what has happened in Maricopa County, but also because it sounds like something that a Calvinist would rail against as naughty. On my brother's blog, he calls it "The Valley of The Yakes," which is a term that came to his attention thanks to the popular 1980s Phoenix skate-punk band JFA. Of course, both of us are smug outsiders, observing the development of Maricopa County at a distance from the relative safety of Tucson.

Mr. Talton has touched on an interesting aspect of sense of place in greater Phoenix. Beyond what he has discussed, one thing I have found interesting is what these names and how they are used reflects resident's sense of geography. My personal observation is that the terms "Arizona," "The Valley," and "Maricopa County" are largely interchangeable to the business community, political leadership, and media in the Phoenix area. In fairness, I think folks in Phoenix include the White Mountains, and perhaps even the Grand Canyon or Sedona when they say "Arizona," but not as discreet places with their own history, values, and identities, but as part of a recreational hinterland. Tucson and Southern Arizona seem not to figure into the discussion at all. This is how legislators can claim with a straight face that Pinal County borders Mexico.

In contrast, we Tucsonans usually say "Tucson" when they are talking about our own metropolitan area, reserving "Arizona" to refer to the state as a whole. I noticed, for example, just a few weeks ago that the roller derby league organized in Phoenix is called "Arizona Roller Derby," as if they represent the whole state, while Tucson's league is more modestly called "Tucson Roller Derby." Something about being removed from the center of political and economic power in the state tends to give us a sense of perspective.

Occasionally, a local organization will call itself "Southern Arizona..." which may well mean "Yes, our office is in Tucson, and everybody on our board is from Tucson, but if we are called out to Ajo or Nogales for some reason, it is certainly within our mission statement." In the same vein, a local arts organization who works almost entirely in Oro Valley and Marana has given itself the rather grandiose name of "Southern Arizona Arts and Culture Alliance" in an apparent effort to position itself better to receive grant money.

Nevertheless, there is a real sense of region, whether that be "Greater Tucson," "Southern Arizona," or, more recently "Baja Arizona." The latter is a shorthand way of saying "We're not Phoenix." "Phoenix," by the way, is how we refer to the whole conurbation, including Mesa and Glendale. Maybe some folks might find this unfair. Heck, Chandler and Gilbert look the same to us from here.

Dr. James Sell, one of my geography professors at the U of A, who now teaches at NAU, did most of his academic work on the subject of perceptions of place. The topic of names was a part of this. I remember him discussing Tucson's nickname of "The Old Pueblo" and how it has managed to survive for well over a century despite aggressive efforts by chamber of commerce types to replace it with something that they judge to be more forward thinking and marketable. Awkward and un-poetic monikers like "Sunshine Factory" and "Optics Valley" have entirely failed to catch on, which says a lot about who we are as a community and our business leadership's complete failure to understand this town.

For some reason, this post reminds me of the 1992 presidential campaign when Rush Limbaugh campaigned for George HW Bush using the mantra "character matters". Bush had it. The meritocratic upstart Clinton? No. Similarly, Bush's wife Barbara had an expression to explicate one social station: "class will tell".

It's odd, of course, since the blueblood Bushs moved to Texas to make their loot and secure their status in the post-war American empire. Even so, they didn't discard their old Connecticut sense of self. Much of George W Bush's odd populism, in this way, can be seen as a reaction to his mother's hauteur. Barbara's pedigree - she traces her family tree back to a former president, Franklin Pierce - is vintage American aristocracy.

Americans love the British royal family almost as much as the Brits do. And we love settled neighborhoods with tree canopies and old houses suggesting old money. What most of don't like is a vulgarian like Donald Trump. But obviously somebody does. And that's the party of the deracinated exurbs, the GOP.

Margaret Thatcher, as much a hero to the American right as Ronald Reagan, embodied this schizophrenia with her dictum, "society doesn't exist". In other words, only the market is real and ancient Toryism is the useless ballast weighing down the ship of state. Business, on the other hand, obeys only what is real and its world-flattening imperatives.

These tensions and contradictions still live within us, however. Nancy Reagan relishes her role as an American royal even though her husband politically capitalized on America's devolution into a socially disconnected crudscape of housing pods and big-box shopping.

Phoenix, in this way, is traditional society. That is, the bits and pieces of central Phoenix that look settled, reflect institutional memory, and remind us of a different, more authentic era. The rest of the "Valley" may be economically stronger and wealthier, but its cachet is like the aftershave on a car salesman's face.

The perennial American argument about wealth and status is bound up with our fear that we've been excluded from its graces. Both liberals and conservatives hum this melody. We argue over the details, the myths, and the petty injustices but most of us, ultimately, want to belong to the best club. Our status anxiety is everywhere and defines our politics, mostly for the worse (as in the white-right) but occasionally for the better (historic preservation, new urbanism, and the arts). Recommended reading: Paul Fussell's Class. http://www.amazon.com/Class-Through-American-Status-System/dp/0671792253/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302786130&sr=8-1

I've lived in central Phoenix most of my life and would only consider older Tempe as an alternative possibility. Most of us want something better than the stucco wrapper on a McMansion or lookalike strip centers. Yes, we're often confused about this. We think new must always be better. But in our heart of hearts we've always longed for the tangible details of shared memory and love. If we can't find it in the real world, we'll invent it in the fantasy version. Just ask Sarah Palin.

Blue Blood
“Down in the valley, the valley so low I lost my true lover a necking to low.” In the 50’s the valley in my world was everything between Peoria and Apache Junction and North Mountain to South Mountain. Paradise Valley was over the Mountain and only the oldest area of Scottsdale was considered in the Valley. Anything NE of Judson’s Girls school was not in the valley. “The Valley” got lost in the classless construction industry of domestic violence suburbia. Starting in the late sixties and continuing today the greed factor inches forward. Today the current emphasis is on moving all those upfront costs back from the contractors to the taxpayers by the current legislators whose wealthiest constituents are the commercial, home and road builders primarily situated in the “east valley.” And of course they plan to sell these products to tax hating people over 55.

Living in the hood of Slope (Sunnyslope) and working the fields of John Jacobs (19th avenue and the Arizona Canal) and the Carol Arthur farms (Glendale) and the fields by Luke AFB I didn’t think much about class, just how much an hour. Yesterday while reading an article on Rachel Carlson I recalled my DDT days and getting paid to wave that flag for the crop duster (airplane) that sprayed me on each pass over the fields.

If Class is the Bush family it’s thanks to their benefactor, Chase. I like Barbara Bush even if she didn’t keep her son George in the closet. Margret Thatcher is a believer in the idea that there are only 5000 people in the world, Bankers, everyone one else is a commodity. Nancy Reagan's closest association with a class act was her astrologer. Class is in my world a pair of Levis and a T-shirt with a pocket for my pen. My classless identity is very clear to me, I am an AH.

Today I see Phoenix as the beautiful little oasis that lost its way. And I wonder what the Old Pueblo would be like had it decided to aggressively expand outward instead of letting a bunch of little enclaves morph into small incorporated cities. Tucson is now pretty much surrounded. And the CPA water is virtually undrinkable. Aggressive is not the way of Tucson. I recall as a (Phoenix) Arizona Road Racer, running in highly organized running events but in Tucson the Southern Arizona Road Racers just showed up and said go. It was hard to find the starting place and the ending place was where ever you decided. However maybe Tucson did it right or Phoenix has yet to get it right and become a MEGACITY. Although current projections cap Phoenix’s population at 10 Million. The dream of Trantor lives on in the minds of many, however I daydream of a western US where one is only allowed in on foot and you can trek from the panhandle to the Pacific Ocean and seldom see a soul.

Personally I envision Phoenix someday as depicted by Abbey, a huge glass tower in a shrunken valley on fire and dry. Dry like the desert it is. And I am the last cowboy riding off into the distance on my recumbent followed by my faithful companion, Spot.

I like PhART as well! It is crude, yet endearing such as SLUT in South Lake Union...

I have trouble with the moniker of "The Valley" as well but (maybe because of the cocoon in which I live in) hardly hear it being used by residents in the Central City and never by a downtowner.

Light rail trains in Phoenix have increasingly been at crush load and I always hear suburbanites coming in from the eastern suburbs calling the trains the "Phoenix light rail" despite the fact that many boarded the thing in Mesa. Maybe the media and boosters will catch on soon enough?

About the sports teams (thank god for the Phoenix Suns) but I always wondered why teams besides the hockey and basketball team didn't use Phoenix in their name. Phoenix Diamondbacks doesn't roll off the tongue as eloquently, admittedly, but rumor has it that if an expansion of MLS (which would make sense given our Hispanic population) makes a home in Phoenix, the team is to be called "Phoenix Rising." Sounds sweet to me!

AZREBEL, just for U. Send me your E-mail and I will not bother the intellectual boys with my trash. The following is my electronic postcard I send out to all my red neck white republican buddies on Turkey day.
For about the last ten years.

Another Spurious White Man Holiday

I sit in the sweat lodge my peyote pipe in hand and lip, inhaling the smoke from nature’s herbs sprinkled with ground white lizard. I drift back in time. Terrible ancestral visions spring forward like a huge buck deer startled by the presences of an alien

I have visions of filthy Englishmen vermin infecting my children with their insidious diseases.

I see bedbug ridden Europeans chase our women and take them like dogs in heat.

My brothers slaughtered like pigs hung from a tree by these Anglo/Saxon Marauders.

The terrible visions pass and I am in a forest than opens onto a vast plain field with buffalo who romp in a gleaming river.

The men break from camp and pick one buffalo to provide for the tribe for a period of time. The other buffalo seem not to notice as if this is supposed to be the way.

The women and children surround the men and their prize. The tribe sets about enjoying the moment as if every day is a feast and every meal a banquet.

An elder interrupts my journey as he flips open the lodges flap and says “We must go as John Ashcroft has sent a team to seize illegal tribal medicine.

I step back into reality and realize I live in a place that really believes some Pirate name Columbus really discovered America and hasn’t got a clue the that the first people to come to America across an ocean (around 300 AD) were Japanese and that their ancestors the Zunis live in a canyon in New Mexico.

These same Anglo/Saxon marauding crusaders invented a mythical holiday and called it Thanksgiving. They celebrate it by driving a polluting vehicle to a store surrounded by concrete and asphalt where they buy a bird stuffed with more chemicals than a drug store.

They set a table and invite other white folks to eat a meal that was harvested at a supermarket not in a field or plain or valley or from the bush thickets that used to line the forests. They celebrate that a bunch of thugs called pilgrims actually survived their arrival into America but not because of the natives but because they pillaged, raped and killed these Natives.

Today’s ancestors of those who invent their own history have not a clue that America was once a great place to be an Indian.

Ha! Got a laugh at Cal Lash's crop duster experience. As a kid I lived way out by the aluminum plant, and we used to ride our bikes out to the canals and farms, where those crop-duster pilots loved showing off. We'd stand there open-mouthed with awe as they'd do rolls over us, and I can still remember that taste. Not sure if it was DDT or Malathion, or both. Mmmm-mmm.
Ivan Doig, in his book "Heart Earth," speaks pretty extensively about his brief childhood experience in WWII Phoenix (and Wickenburg). It seems poignant as hell now, but it's an interesting historical perspective.

Cal - give me a link on that post about "The Zuni Enigma". I have worried this theory down over & over, and have been dissuaded by the local archi-types from pursuing it further. In short, they tell me "it aint so". What's new on this theory?

Terry, I generally tend to pursue anything I am advised not to!
I recently saw an article on the web and it talked about further confirmation of this theory but it didnt provide any source. However from the following web site you can get some info.http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_adn05.htm
Confirming a South Pacific and Japanese Migration

Based on the mutations found in the mtDNA, most researchers think that groups A, C and D, entered America from Siberia across Beringia some time around 35.000 B.C. Group B, they assert, probably came to America from the South Pacific or Japan via boats. It is believed the B groups began this migration not long after the A, C, and D groups arrived. However, the majority of the B group arrived about 11.000 B.C. This leaves open the possibility of several migrations by the B group from different locations.

It should be noted that a few geneticists have proposed that each of these tour haplogroups came in four separate migrations. And many Clovis supporters argue that all the groups migrated together.

Well, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Cal today. We had an enjoyable visit.

We decided to form a "Jon Talton Fan Club".

Neither of us wanted to be president or vice president, so those positions are open to first come, first serve.

Since we did decide that the sergeant at arms will be allowed to carry a weapon, we will both be sergeants at arms. We figure two armed SAA's will prevent any future club president or vice president from grabbing too much power.

While the subject of dues did come up, we decided to table the discussion until we have the officer ranks filled.

One personal note to Fusilero, I tried to use the word "Conurbation" in a sentence today. It didn't go well. It got me slapped in a Fry's food market and thrown out of a Dairy Queen.

Speaking of swearing, Arizona is about to pass a "birther" law. I see two problems immediately. One: I dont have a birth certificate as I was born on a farm in the river bottom and there was no one present except my now dead parents. Two, even after you present all your evidence to the state the elected Secretary of State has final say so on whether you really are a citizen. What U think Jon?
To coincide with this on going waste of time at the AZ legislature, today the Tea Party and the John Birch Society are pushing the movie Atlas Shrugged" opening today at the Valley Art Theater. I am going as I love a circus.

Announcing the first annual Jon Talton Supper Club gathering.
This event will be held at the Compass Room Restaurant during day light hours atop the Hyatt hotel located in the Concrete Desert of Phoenix Arizona. The event will allow for an hour of Rogue conversations while obtaining a rotating observation of the destruction wrought on Phoenix by ugly developers. The menu will include Martinis, stirred not shaken thank you. Sweet Lucy Wine will be served by one of Jon’s favorite protagonists. Guest speakers will include a Macho Hispanic law enforcement type and a local strong willed motorcycle nut and active FBI agent whose real identity cannot be revealed as she is currently investigating an organized prostitute ring in Sun City. For reservations please contact Cabrone Cal at 6023161755 or coper1658@aol.com. Plus if you need me to take video of your current SO, I will be happy to do so. Rates start at $150 per hour plus expenses. Mileage starts from the time I leave my Jim Rockford type motor home.

There are some crazy ass long posts here, but I enjoy 'em all. Not a Rogue Columnist Fan Club? And I'm already priced out of the supper club (no burritos at some hole-in-the-wall or the Presidential Booth at Pancho's?). And I always end up with a couple more hours of reading to do from all the links and sidebars (too bad I'm not at work!). I always thought Tucsonians refered to Phoenix as the "Center of the Universe" - quit 'er bitchin' toads and take yon lips off the water straw. Nice post RC!

"In both countries, most of the population lives in urban areas, but there is a crucial difference in language that creates a difference in habits of thought. Americans think of big "cities" as separate from their "suburbs," and often use these terms as shorthand or euphemism for a range of other oppositions. (Only in America, for example, would a style of music associated with black people be called "Urban.") Americans also have the idea of a suburban center (what Joel Garreau calls an "Edge City') that clings to the outer orbit of a big city but can think of itself as unrelated to it. Hence someone in Tyson's Corner, Virginia, say, may be happier thinking of their metro area as "Northern Virginia" rather than "greater Washington DC.""

When I first visited Arcosanti, I remember thinking to myself, "This makes a lot of sense". Reduce the human footprint on nature, so that nature is preserved for future enjoyment. Energy is used more efficiently. Time is used more efficiently.

In our "open, free market society", sound, good ideas usually end up working and being accepted by the masses.

So here's my question, if the idea was good, why did it fail so badly and who were the forces who won out over "the good idea"?

Azrebel, I think it failed because it wasn't a good idea. I'm not saying that the "free market" is a fail-proof arbiter of these things, only that "arcology" was a brilliant but daft idea that suffered from a basic misunderstanding of the environment. We live on the planet for a reason - that's where all the goodies are. It's not as if elevating ourselves will somehow make our resource demands that much less. Yes, there's some gain in efficiencies and energy conservation by living vertically but past a certain point, the arbitrary nature of the commune becomes self-defeating. Arcosanti would have been the sine qua ultra of command economies requiring an overseer class that would make our current oligarchy look egalitarian.

A couple of comments about the Reason interview with Jane Jacobs. I smell a rat when a libertarian extols the humane virtues of cities. It's not that libertarians can't appreciate cities or offer good insights. It's that the absolutist nature of their ideology tends to make those insights subservient to an overarching demand that places the "free market" in charge of every everything. So, in this case, Portland is bad because it mandated growth boundaries, thus placing a higher value on its environment than economic liberty. Libertarians, even the crunchy kind, must by their very nature deny the intrinsic value of the environment. If we overbuild or overpopulate or over-utilize the planet, the free market will solve that for us, too. I would just as soon avoid the correction, if at all possible.

Still, there's an excellent point in the libertarian complaint about government mandating certain uses that end creating monocultures instead of functional if messy cities. Planners playing God wreak havoc by imagining cities the way Euclid imagined the cosmos. Their assumptions about human nature are too thin and brittle to be of much use. Anytime you see a modernist skyscraper set back in a sterile plaza, you can see a minimalist sensibility at work on a canvas where people's real lives count for nothing.

If it wasn't for the automobile, I would happily let the market (not crony capitalism or cartelized professions) make our urban decisions. But the car changed everything, from our spatial requirements to how we even see the city. Driving down Central Avenue at 35 mph, you tend to overlook the gaps where human activity and social networking should occur. Traveling on foot, those gaps become obvious.

Jacobs' insights are a necessary counterweight to the hubris of top-down developers and government officials. I only wish we had invited her to Phoenix back in the 1980s. Instead of these sterile corporate plazas with a retail component (Arizona Center, Collier Center, Cityscape), we might have let a real city take root in the forlorn blocks too humble and too real for our bad love.

Soleri as Sisyphus
Soleri, I think you are the Running Man and Sisyphus in the same chemical and electronic make up. When “manunkind” makes that transition to a non physical being I hope you are there as the galaxy will need your mind. I tried several times to read your Acrosanti piece and the accompanying web site. Maybe someday you might be able to translate for me. I did take it as a rather pessimistic view of the future. Time to put on my cowboy hat and mount my recumbent.

About the best thing that can be said about Paolo Soleri is that he makes beautiful bells. As any kind of visionary about human living arrangements, he can be lumped into the disastrous crew that wrecked the City Beautiful Movement and continues to make ugly buildings in the name of their egos.

To be fair, unlike Le Corbusier or Wright at his worst, Soleri didn't exactly promote car-based sprawl. He just didn't address the automobile age at all, the foremost challenge facing anyone who would seek to build "an experimental town." Thus, Arcosanti is out at Cordes Junction, in splendid artistic isolation, but only reachable by vehicle. As Yavapai County grows, especially, Arcosanti looks like more of the trailer-trash settlements spilling over from the Verde Valley.

The most efficient living arrangement is the dense town or city that's scalable, walkable, high quality of life, shady, connected by transit, rail, etc. This also doesn't seek to change human nature's love of property and one's own space. The loss of the City Beautiful Movement and the entire sense of quality civic design in America remains a huge tragedy.

The market was distorted by cheap gas, subsidies for cars and suburbia while railroads were taxed near death and transit systems dismantled. Markets fail. In this case, the cost of suburbia, freeways, car-generated pollution, et al are not "costed" into our stats-obsessed society. If they were, we would go back to our old style of town and city design.

All Soleri did was create one more Arizona freak show, like "The Thing" on I-10. Sorry to be harsh. He does make nice bells.

Very good answers from everyone.
However, it was a bit of a trick question.

The reason it was a trick question is due to the fact that we have not lived in an open, free market society for a very long time. Thanks to the banking, oil and auto interests of this country, our destiny has been defined and predetermined by them since the early 1800's.

The special thing about Arizona is that in addition to the big three masters listed above, we also have the electicity and water masters that we serve here in the desert.

If you've ever tried to read Paolo Soleri, you know how frustrating visionary theory can be. You have to adopt not merely the lingo but the cultish certitude that enfolds the entire ideology. I can read maybe one paragraph before I fall asleep. If there's a point to mystification, it's probably a way of avoiding impertinent questions. I went through a Catholic phase during college in which I read Teilhard de Chardin. Or tried to. Finally I gave up and was relieved when I found that Hallmark cards expressed the same sentiments rather more economically.

This all borders on nostalgia, but we should pause and remember all the hippies that came to Arizona to work or "apprentice" on Arcosanti. This includes Arizona's greatest living architect, Will Bruder. I was never one of them but I appreciated their presence. Even today, you'll run in to them at Green Party meetings or a food co-op. They tend to be gentle and idealistic, and maybe a little credulous. I can't hear a Jackson Browne song without thinking of them, like Deadheads but with a purpose.

Jon, skip the "The Thing" on I-10 and go for the Amerind Foundation and Cochise and Dragoon. Turn off on exit 318 for The stagecoach route of the Butterfield Overland Mail passed through Texas Canyon from 1858 until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1862 when the stage line suspended operations. The canyon is historically within the range of the Chiricahua Apache, and Cochise made his last stronghold near here in the Dragoon Mountains during the mid-1870s.

In the mid to late 1880s David A. Adams arrived from Coleman County, Texas, soon to be followed by other family members. The family became the namesake of Texas Canyon, as there were "a bunch of damned Texans up there." Descendants still live and raise cattle on the old family ranch.

The Amerind Foundation, a privately funded archaeological and ethnographic research facility, library, museum and art gallery founded by William Shirley Fulton in the 1930s lies about a mile south of I-10 in Texas Canyon at Exit 318. This is some of my favroite country. Cal

This is probably way too simplistic an answer, but Arcosanti looks much too Brutalistic to function on a large scale. Aesthetically, is it uglier than many new tract-home subdivisions in Phoenix and I would never voluntarily choose to live somewhere even as "nice" as Verrado. I couldn't imagine hundreds of those mud-hut like structures in a downtown somewhere no matter how densely populated they may be. I often wondered if Paolo Soleri designed his buildings as a modern version of Casa Grande or other Hohokam dwellings.

As for architecture in downtowns like CityScape and Collier Center, I think that CityScape is a successfully designed space and will be very important for downtown PHX growth. I also am glad that the third block was canceled. Because CityScape became a smaller development, it now allows for varied design on other blocks. Likewise, now most of the pedestrian interactions for the development occur on the corners (this I believe, was an accident brought on by store/restaurant placement).

The busiest sections of CityScape are on Central and Washington (Urban Outfitters, Charming Charlies), 1st Ave and Washington (Five Brother's), 1st Ave and Jefferson (CVS), and 1st St and Jefferson (Arrogant Butcher). It is likely that new development will follow this trend because customers will demand more street level, sidewalk facing retail and entertainment (and downtown building codes require most new buildings and highrises to incorporate street-level retail).

So yes, I'm saying that by accident, CityScape became a little more "organic" than it was initially designed for; there is also much more plant life incorporated into CityScape than Collier Center and the water features help. Looks at Civic Space Park; it has blossomed into a truly green space in a short amount of time. It is much cooler in the park than in blocks around it and a reason why you find a great deal of people utilizing it.

In the context of labels, maybe we can examine the lunacy of those who envision "The Sunshine Corridor" linking Phoenix and Tucson. It reeks of denial and dysfunction and may be deservedly dead in the water, but the Booster Club still seems to hang onto the prospect that someday the palm-y days will return!

I think the Sun Corridor has its origins in ASU and Michael Crow trying to make nice with the Real Estate Industrial Complex. Or it might have begun with the Rockefeller Foundation's America 2050 and been latched onto by ASU. Either way, since then, it's been used to generation all manner of delusional reports by think tanks.

In the context of the Sun Corridor, "sustainability" is code for urban Arizona being able to keep doing what it's doing now (or was before the bust) endlessly into the future with no consequences. For example, cooling sidewalk technology will save the day. The plans and pleas for "planned development" will go nowhere, and they usually involve the same car-based sprawl as today.

If Phoenix-Tucson ever gathers the 8 million promised by the Sun Corridor hucksters, God help us.

As the co-Sargent at Arms of the Jon Talton fan club, I can tell you that "feeling for one another" is allowed in this club. "Feeling each other" will be limited to hand shakes and pats on the back. Upper back.

Remember, we're still putting together the club rules. Hugs are still on the table, we just haven't gotten to that agenda item. I will admit we spent way too much time on the caliber of weapons the SSA's are allowed to carry.